Welcome Home

You are welcome here at Middle Church, just as you are as you come through the door. You were awesomely and wonderfully made, in God’s image; God's love is manifest in you! Because we know there is more than one path to God, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, atheists, and Christians of all stripes make their way to our sanctuary to experience how #LoveTransforms. Every ethnicity and race, millennials and boomers, trans and gay, singles and families, all call Middle home.

The diversity of our congregation and staff looks like a New York City subway but it feels like a home full of love. Middle Church is where therapy meets Broadway; where art and dance meet a gospel revival; where old time religion gets a new twist. We are Bach, Beatles, and Beethoven; we are jazz, hip-hop, and spirituals. We are inspired by Howard Thurman, Ruby Sales, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Martin Luther King. We are on-your-feet worship and take-it-to-the-streets activism. We feed the hungry and work for a living wage; we fight for LGBTQ equality and march for racial/ethnic justice.

We believe in the power of Love. Period. Through Love, we are each created in God’s image and filled with the Divine Spark. No matter whom we love, no matter how we look, no matter where we are on our journey, God’s imprint is in every person of every race/ethnicity, every gender, and every sexual orientation. We believe God speaks many languages and is calling us on many paths to peace—Shalom. We believe that Love put on flesh—brown, poor, Jewish baby flesh—and came to live among us. We believe God lives among us still; we are the living body of Christ. We are the hands, feet, and heartbeat of God. We believe the Spirit of God calls us to freedom, and we are not free until all of us are free.

Middle Collegiate Church is a multicultural, multi-ethnic, inter-generational movement of Spirit and justice, powered by Revolutionary Love, with room for all. Following in the Way of Jesus’ radical love, and inspired by the prophets, Middle Church is called by God to do a bold new thing on the earth. We aim to heal the soul and the world by dismantling racist, classist, sexist, and homophobic systems of oppression.

Physically, we are located in the East Village of Manhattan. Spiritually, we are located in a universalist place; God loves all people, just as they are. Theologically: Progressive. Politically: Lefty. We are welcoming, artistic, inclusive, bold.